The title is helluva misleading. AWS cloud became "The AWS" because there was already a huge tried and tested market of traditional computers (literally 99.9999% of modern computing is 2 bit computing). They sure can become the pioneers of offering large scale subscription based quantum computing. It is annoying how marketers will go above and beyond to generalize terms just to convey their point. I wish them best of luck and hopefully they will introduce quantum computing to an average joe programmer.
Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
21–30 of 45 posts
Re: Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
We already know that a capable quantum computer can do a lot of things faster than a classical computer and it's undoubtedly going to happen within the next couple decades if not sooner. I think he's just planning ahead and riding the bleeding edge technology. Edit: Thanks everyone for pointing out a flaw in my opinion. For anyone actually interested in delving into the discussion of whether or not quantum computing…
Theranos rode the bleeding edge of technology until they ran out of edge.
also blood!
Re: Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
#23So we're not yet at a point where we can show that a quantum computer can do anything at all faster than a classical computer - and this guy already plans his datacenter for the upcoming quantum AWS. I'd say he's confusing step 20 with step 2 or something...
Normally I'd agree with you, but some of the breakthroughs in this space over the last 18 month make it clear that it's not an "if," but a "when." They're positioning to be right there when the moment happens.
That's not true at all. Scaling quantum computers is exponentially hard - each bit is twice as hard to keep coherent as the last.
And the higher-qubit demos you've heard about have quite low fidelity, meaning they'll need multiple physical qubits to represent each logical qubit.
When a problem scales like 2^(2x), you can easily reach an insurmountable barrier. I'm not saying they will, mind you.
Re: Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
We already know that a capable quantum computer can do a lot of things faster than a classical computer and it's undoubtedly going to happen within the next couple decades if not sooner. I think he's just planning ahead and riding the bleeding edge technology. Edit: Thanks everyone for pointing out a flaw in my opinion. For anyone actually interested in delving into the discussion of whether or not quantum computing…
That's actually incorrect. Many people believe a quantum computer may be more powerful than a classical computer, but that is definitely not proven and plenty of people also believe that may not be true.
Well, for certain classes of problems, it is certainly proven that quantum algorithms are faster than classical algorithms. And they're not totally theoretical pie-in-the-sky; you can implement a 5- or 16-qubit version of Shor's algorithm in IBM Q Experience[0] and run it on a real, physical quantum computer. The growing pains are in implementing quantum computers that are large enough to be of practical importance, and then building those systems several-fold larger for Quantum Fault Tolerance.[1]
Quantum computers are never going to replace or speed up every aspect of classical computation, but the idea of accessing them as a service for certain types of computation is probably not many decades off.
[0] https://quantumexperience.ng.bluemix.net/proxy/tutorial/full...
Re: Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
We already know that a capable quantum computer can do a lot of things faster than a classical computer and it's undoubtedly going to happen within the next couple decades if not sooner. I think he's just planning ahead and riding the bleeding edge technology. Edit: Thanks everyone for pointing out a flaw in my opinion. For anyone actually interested in delving into the discussion of whether or not quantum computing…
Theranos rode the bleeding edge of technology until they ran out of edge.
Theranos style cloud quantum computing - run the simulation on classic and sell the result as quantum result.
Re: Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's actually incorrect. Many people believe a quantum computer may be more powerful than a classical computer, but that is definitely not proven and plenty of people also believe that may not be true.
Well, for certain classes of problems, it is certainly proven that quantum algorithms are faster than classical algorithms. And they're not totally theoretical pie-in-the-sky; you can implement a 5- or 16-qubit version of Shor's algorithm in IBM Q Experience[0] and run it on a real, physical quantum computer. The growing pains are in implementing quantum computers that are large enough to be of practical importance,…
There are quantum algorithms for certain problems that are exponentially faster than any known classical algorithm, and there are good reasons to believe that BQP is not contained in BPP, but we don't have proof of that yet as far as I know.
(Technically we still don't really know whether physics actually allows quantum computers with more than a few bits. Quantum mechanics says yes, but the universe can still veto.)
Re: Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
#27Did I just hear “almost”?
Re: Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's actually incorrect. Many people believe a quantum computer may be more powerful than a classical computer, but that is definitely not proven and plenty of people also believe that may not be true.
Well, for certain classes of problems, it is certainly proven that quantum algorithms are faster than classical algorithms. And they're not totally theoretical pie-in-the-sky; you can implement a 5- or 16-qubit version of Shor's algorithm in IBM Q Experience[0] and run it on a real, physical quantum computer. The growing pains are in implementing quantum computers that are large enough to be of practical importance,…
>it is certainly proven that quantum algorithms are faster than classical algorithms.
yes. What isn't proven is that actual implementation of quantum algorithms would be fast enough (i.e. while a given quantum algorithm may be order of magnitude faster using the number of steps/operations a the metric, may it happen that the runtime (using time as the metric) of those quantum steps may take order of magnitude longer ?). There is some indications that various corrections/etc. have to grow faster than linear with the number of qubits.
Re: Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
#29So we're not yet at a point where we can show that a quantum computer can do anything at all faster than a classical computer - and this guy already plans his datacenter for the upcoming quantum AWS. I'd say he's confusing step 20 with step 2 or something...
the other possibility is that they do know something that isn't widely known about quantum computing.
[deleted]
Re: Quantum computing is almost ready for business, startup says
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Normally I'd agree with you, but some of the breakthroughs in this space over the last 18 month make it clear that it's not an "if," but a "when." They're positioning to be right there when the moment happens.
Got any sources? I have not seen anything that promises anything. This reminds me of the carbon nanotube hype, when they we're going to be the best at everything from batteries to bulletproof vests. There are currently 0 CN products on the market, and it is not clear there ever will be. Betting on an undiscovered technology that isn't proven to exist is far form a sure thing.
Research in carbon nanotubes only really matured from fundamental to applied in the past 15 years, so I don't think it's that surprising that the market isn't flooded with them yet.
We're already seeing some of the first commercially available CNT products, though. Take Vantablack[0] as an example. Or for non-commercial applications of CNT tech, see the CNT-reinforced bicycle frame that Floyd Landis used to win the Tour de France in 2006.[1]
When you consider that Bakelite was invented in 1907, but didn't see major manufacture until the 1940s, or that PVC was discovered in the 1870s, but didn't see commercial production until almost the same time, it doesn't seem like CNT are much behind the timeline for plastics. The entire chemical and plastics revolution didn't really take swing until the 1960s.
CNT probably aren't vaporware, and even if they were I don't know if that'd be too damning a story for Quantum Computers. Quantum Computing isn't "undiscovered" or "[not] proven to exist." Plenty of labs have produced physical quantum logic gates, and IBM even makes access to some of their real 5- and 16-qubit machines available online through the cloud.[2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack
[1] https://archive.fo/20120713061226/http://news.cnet.com/Carbo...